The present invention relates generally to learning, and more particularly to computer-aided methods and systems for a group of users to work on a subject.
The most common group-learning environment is a classroom. For thousands of years, knowledge has been conveyed in a classroom, with an instructor teaching a group of students. Such a group-learning environment has many benefits. For example, some students may be too timid to ask questions, though they do not understand. Such students will benefit from others who are not afraid to ask. When the instructor answers a question, many students benefit. While some students learn from the answer, others are encouraged they are not the only one who do not understand. There might even be students feeling superior over the student asking the question because they know the answer. Though such feelings should not be supported, they may motivate some students to learn. These types of psychological advantages of a group-learning environment should not be underestimated.
However, typically, there are too many students in a class. It is not uncommon to have students day-dreaming or even sleeping in class. The instructor just cannot cater to the needs of each student. Also, students in a class room are passive learners. They usually do not interact among themselves during class because information should flow from the instructor to the students, not among the students. With the instructor being the center of attention, students interacting among themselves may be considered as interrupting the instructor and disrupting the classroom atmosphere; those students might be reprimanded. Actually, there are instructors who do not even allow questions from the students.
Another learning environment is a small group of students actively interacting. A student who does not understand a certain area can be assisted by another student. With students interacting, encouraging and even criticizing each other, they are more alert than students in a typical classroom. Such an active interacting environment is more stimulating than the passive learning environment of a classroom.
Not only do students in such an active environment have better concentration, they typically have better understanding of a subject than the passive classroom students. By getting more involved, the students develop more insights in the subject. Also, no one person has exactly the same background and experience as another. During interaction, different students bring into the group different perspective, which can be enlightening.
A similar discussion environment with a lot of interaction is a chat room in the computer world. Members of a chat room typically share a common interest; it can be breast feeding a baby or biology. Usually, there is an initiator, who starts a session of discussion in a certain area within the common interest. Other members of that group respond. It is an environment where information is exchanged freely, in uncontrolled discussions. Typically, the session ends when members lose interest. Though interesting, such chat room environments are not geared towards learning. It is more suitable for a group of members with similar interest to express their viewpoints, or exchange ideas.
In order for group discussion environments to be effective, the group should not be too big because a big group discourages interaction. However, a small group can end up gossiping, wasting a lot of their time. Another problem of a small group is that members have limited information. One benefit of a classroom environment is the presence of an instructor, who presumably should have much more knowledge in the subject of interest than the students. A group environment does not have that luxury. The group might get stuck in a certain critical area, and cannot proceed. Also, members might have diverse strengths and weakness. One member of the group might be much weaker than others. He might be left behind by the remaining members of the group, and ultimately drop out of the group.
Another environment to learn that is becoming more prevalent is learning through computers, which are gradually becoming an integral part of our culture. It is not difficult to include fancy audio-visual effects in the instructional materials. Such multimedia computer-aided learning systems can help some of us focus because they can create a lot of stimuli to our senses. Another benefit of computer-aided learning is the immense amount of information available to the users. Not only do the users have access to harddisks with giga-bytes of information, they can surf the Internet and the World-Wide-Web for practically unlimited resources.
Many computer-aided learning systems that are tailored to the needs of individual students are also in development. Such methods and systems have been illustrated, for example, in the following allowed U.S. patent applications:
1. Methods and Apparatus to Assess and Enhance a Student's Understanding in a Subject, with Ser. No. 08/618,193; PA0 2. A Reward Enriched Learning System and Method with Ser. No. 08/633,582; PA0 3. A Relationship-Based Computer-Aided-Educational System, with Ser. No. 08/664,023; and PA0 4. A Learning System and Method Based on Review, with Ser. No. 08/675,391.
These systems and methods are quite intelligent, and very useful. They accurately identify, and offer solutions to, one of the main weaknesses of classroom education--an instructor cannot cater to the needs of each student. By focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of individual students, computer-aided learning systems can effectively teach, evaluate and reward users.
However, inherent in such computer-aided learning systems and methods is the unavoidable effect of working solely with a machine, not a living being. Until one day we have machines with artificial intelligence that is as sophisticated as a human mind, working with machines typically is not as interesting as interacting with another human being. Even then, we might still prefer to interact with our peers. To be ridiculed by our peers might generate more consequences--not necessarily productive--than to receive accolades from our computers. We usually prefer to have a certain degree of human touch.
It should have been obvious that there is a need for a computer-aided learning environment for a group of users, where they can interact and work on a subject together.